Sex 'slave' says she had to deliver 'Lizzi' Marriott into Mazzaglia's clutches

Wednesday

Jun 4, 2014 at 12:01 AM

By Kyle Stuckerkstucker@seacoastonline.com

DOVER, N.H. — Kathryn "Kat" McDonough testified Tuesday she felt she had no "option" but to bring a female college student into her sexual relationship with former boyfriend Seth Mazzaglia, a Dover man accused of murdering that student.McDonough, 20, broke down in tears several times while admitting she brought University of New Hampshire sophomore Elizabeth "Lizzi" Marriott of Westborough, Massachusetts, into her emotionally controlling and sexually dominating relationship with Mazzaglia.She did so because Mazzaglia had brutally sodomized her one month earlier as punishment for failing to find him a female sex "slave" before she was to leave for a 12-day summer camp.McDonough, formerly of Portsmouth, described to Strafford Superior Court jurors how Marriott died on Oct. 9, 2012. Mazzaglia "strangled her with a rope," McDonough said. When asked how she knew who the killer was, she replied, "I was there."She said she did nothing to stop Mazzaglia.McDonough's testimony of the punishment, in which Mazzaglia allegedly warned her about in a lengthy and graphic text message, was read aloud in court."It was just a very rough encounter," said McDonough, wiping her eyes with a tissue. "It was a lot of hitting and, like he wrote, the twisting and smacking. It's hard for me to bring back — it just really … it was really rough, and now looking back on it, it was not something I wanted to do. I know I didn't have an option because I knew I had messed up and I knew he expected me to take the punishment, so I did."Mazzaglia's texts describing the punishment also included a description about what Mazzaglia hoped to do to an unnamed friend of McDonough as part of the punishment."I think it would be fitting if the first thing you saw me do when you got back is pleasure one of your friends until they died of orgasms and only then turned my brutal attention to you," Mazzaglia wrote in the texts, which McDonough later said shocked her.McDonough testified for the first time Tuesday as part of the fifth day of Mazzaglia's trial. Mazzaglia is accused of raping and strangling Marriott after Marriott rebuffed his sexual advances while the trio played strip poker. She is expected to resume her testimony today.McDonough said it "meant a lot" for her to "try and please him." She also said it made her feel as if she were worthless when she was "very unsuccessful" over a period of several months while trying to find him a young, slender woman willing to join them in bondage-style sexual activity."When I couldn't do that, it made me question everything about myself," said McDonough.McDonough said she considered Marriott as a potential sexual partner because she was a "beautiful person" who was "just so happy" and "seemed so content with what was happening" in her own life. McDonough said Marriott always offered to help her and other people, and that Marriott was "silly in a good way."Many people in the gallery wept when they heard those descriptions of Marriott.After the punishment in September 2012, McDonough said Mazzaglia urged her to recruit Marriott because she "was a real potential" sexual partner because of her physique and personality. She said Mazzaglia also said he believed he formed some sort of connection with Marriott after he came home on Oct. 2, 2012, and found Marriott and McDonough watching a movie in the apartment he shared with McDonough. It was the first time Marriott had been there.McDonough said Mazzaglia told her to set up an Oct. 9, 2012 hangout in which McDonough should "jokingly" suggest that the three of them play strip poker. McDonough said Mazzaglia thought "it seemed safer" if McDonough suggested the game, and therefore more likely for Marriott to want to play.Tuesday's portion of the trial ended just as prosecutors began talking about the minutes surrounding Marriott's arrival at Mazzaglia's apartment that night. Earlier in the day, McDonough was asked to answer a number of questions on the stand related to her sexual relationship with Mazzaglia, which she said started as a submissive bondage-style relationship and increasingly became more and more of a "slave" relationship in which McDonough said her sole purpose during sex was to please Mazzaglia.Mazzaglia's legal team has claimed McDonough acted as a "switch," who at times sexually dominated Mazzaglia. McDonough said Tuesday, though, "it just never happened that way." She said Mazzaglia was the dominant one "like, all the time" during a sexual relationship that featured such acts "at least once a day, if not, like, up to six or nine times a day.""(If he wanted sex), then that's what we did," said McDonough. "I didn't really decline or hesitate because I knew he would get upset."A number of graphic messages exchanged between Mazzaglia and McDonough were shared aloud in court, including details about the couple's experiences with "breath play," which is the type of sex act in which the defense has argued McDonough — not Mazzaglia — killed Marriott.McDonough said she lived in Portsmouth and was 17 when she said she began a sexual relationship with Mazzaglia in October 2011.She is the key witness against Mazzaglia, and she also described in court Tuesday the reasons why she was initially drawn to him romantically and physically."He was always telling me how beautiful I was and made me feel special," McDonough said. "He made me feel like I was very important, that, like, I was the one for him."McDonough pleaded guilty in July for her role in the case and was sentenced to 1½ to three years in prison in exchange for cooperating with investigators and her testimony during Mazzaglia's trial.McDonough is expected to testify again Wednesday. Tuesday's testimony ended before questioning was to begin about the night prosecutors say Mazzaglia killed Marriott.

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